DOUBTERS SAY GOD MISCAST IN BRITISH PLAY, BUT SHE TAKES IT WELL.

Byline: Sarah Lyall The New York Times

The cast members of the traditional York Mystery Plays were warming up in a freezing rehearsal room here when God, standing in front of Pontius Pilate and the Virgin Mary, began to giggle conspiratorially during the shoulder exercises.

``I can't do it if you look at me like that!'' said God, who was modestly dressed in a pair of baggy corduroy pants and a blue sweater and who is being played by Ruth Ford, a 64-year-old local dealer in antiques.

The diminutive Ford may seem an unlikely choice to portray the most powerful force in the universe, an understandably pivotal one in a production that depicts biblical stories from Genesis straight through the life of Jesus. ``It is by far the biggest role that I've ever had,'' she said, ``and I'm a bit overawed by it.''

She is even more awed by the furor her casting has caused.

For as long as anyone can remember, a man has played God in the Mystery Plays, which were once performed by local workers' guilds on the streets of this ancient walled city.

It is a role that serves as a lightning rod for people's own views about religion and certainly about God, who over the years has been depicted as a stereotypical gray-bearded father figure, as a disembodied voice booming from the heavens and, in one production, as a coal miner from Leeds.

But the casting of a woman this year, for performances that start in June, has stirred passions across Britain and fed the continuing debate about the role of women in the conservative, male-dominated Church of England. Since women were first ordained as priests two years ago, the church has remained effectively split between those who favor a larger role for women along with other modernizations, and those who oppose such changes.

To the dozens of indignant people, clergymen among them, who wrote letters of complaint to John Doyle, the artistic director of the York Theater Royal, the portrayal of God as woman is the last straw.

``It's modern political correctness gone mad,'' said the Venerable George Austin, the staunchly conservative archdeacon of York, who was vehemently opposed to letting women become priests and who believes that God is male. ``The Bible describes God in male terms, so you should follow Scripture - not modern feminism.''

But for Doyle, Ford was the best person for the job. When she arrived for the audition, he said, he had a near-thunderbolt of inspiration.

``It's a very difficult play to cast,'' he said. ``How do you cast the Virgin Mary, Jesus and St. Peter when there are so many preconceptions and religious responsibilities contained within the play? But the first time I set eyes on her,'' he said, speaking of Ford, ``I knew I'd found my God.''

What was it about her? ``She has strength of character, dignity, charisma, humor, and a bit of a twinkle in her eye,'' he said. ``She's just the sort of person that other people would do things for.''

Nor is it fair to say that God is necessarily male, he said, citing the biblical passage in which God says he made both man and woman in his own image. ``But a lot of people don't like new things, and someone wrote to me and said I had no right to have an opinion on what God was. But I believe that it's everybody's right. I'm also not saying that God is a woman, or that Ruth Ford is God. Acting is about what happens on the stage.''

For her part, Ford doesn't feel particularly Godlike, even if fellow dealers in antiques insist on asking whether they should kneel before her when she shows up at antiques fairs.

``I hope to bring a truth to the role, and a dignity,'' she said in an interview before the evening's first rehearsal of the scene in which she leads Abraham up the mountain and commands him to kill his son Isaac.

``If it doesn't sound too pompous, I want to make people think and feel and listen to those beautiful words.''

Ford has previously appeared in the Mystery Plays, which are staged every four years or so, as Mary Magdalene and the wife of Pontius Pilate. This time, she heard that Doyle, who cast a mix of professionals and amateurs, planned to give some of the traditionally male roles to women, and thought she might be good as the devil.

(As it was, Doyle decided that the part should be shared by a man and a woman, but the woman got a promotion and moved out of town, so this year the devil remains a man).